Post by Peter MoylanPost by Athel Cornish-BowdenPost by Peter MoylanPost by Peter T. DanielsJust like atheists. It is exactly as impossible to prove the
nonexistence of divine entities as it is to prove their
existence.
An interesting parallel, but I don't think it's valid. Atheists
don't actually say that gods cannot exist.
Richard Dawkins said that on a scale from 1 (or 0, I don't remember)
for God definitely exists, to 7 for God definitely does not exist,
he rates himself as a 6. I don't kow of any atheist (though probably
there are some) who would claim certainty that God does not exist.
Post by Peter MoylanInstead, they say that, on the available evidence, the probability
of one or more gods existing is so vanishingly small that it might
as well be ignored. That's not an anti-science position.
I'd like to take issue with that "exactly as impossible". That's based
on the idea that if a scenario has two possible outcomes, then those
outcomes are equally possible.
For example: will the sun explode tomorrow? There are two possibilities.
Either it will, or it won't, so we can assign a 0.5 probability to the
two cases. Therefore, there is a 50% probability that the sun will
explode tomorrow.
In reality, we have to take the a priori probabilities into account.
That means the information we already have available to us. We know a
lot about solar evolution, and that changes the probabilities.
The same argument applies to the existence of gods. The naive argument
says that, since we have no a priori knowledge, there is a 50%
probability that gods exist. But it doesn't work like that. We have to
take into account the information already available to us.
The pro-god argument is based on faith. Faith is, as I understand it, is
the willingness to believe something that most of the evidence says is
false.
"Faith is believing what you know ain't so." - attr Mark Twain.
But no intelligent Christian would agree. Faith is, as I understand it,
the willingness to believe something for which there is evidence but no
proof.
I *know* that the square root of 2 is irrational because it has been
proved. (I even understand the proof.)
I have a vast amount of empirical (experiential) evidence that my desk
chair will support me.
I can therefore have faith that my chair will continue to support me
without collapsing, but I don't *know* it because I have no proof. The
depth of my faith is demonstrated by the fact that I continue to sit in
the chair. Do you have faith in your chair, sir? I think you do, sir.
People who believe in God tend to do so because they have experienced
what they interpret as His work in their lives - empirical evidence that
cannot be replicated in the laboratory, just like almost all empirical
evidence cannot.
Post by Peter MoylanSince there is not much evidence that gods exist, that
strengthens our faith. You can win any argument with that sort of reasoning.
If you include empirical evidence, there's loads of evidence for God.
Any Christian will be able to look back on countless moments in their
lives when they have known the presence of God. It is those experiences
that constitute the evidence that strengthens our faith.
If you exclude empirical evidence, there is not much evidence... of
anything at all.
If you are prepared to reject people's experience of God and then claim
there is not much evidence of God, why not also reject people's
experience of physics and claim there is not much evidence of physics?
I don't mean to bang on about this, Peter, and I promise I won't keep
banging on, but I am continually amazed by some of the rubbish people
think Christians believe and I wanted to wave a small flag to say "we're
really truly not as daft as you like to make out".
--
Richard Heathfield
Email: rjh at cpax dot org dot uk
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
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